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Colouring Easter Eggs

4/5/2020

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I am so excited to share this tutorial with you. This brings me back to my childhood and the time my grandma first introduced me to natural dyeing. It was exactly this, dyeing Easter eggs with onion skins. I still remember how we started looking for eggs and onion skins in the kitchen. Then she said let’s go for a walk and find some leaves to print with. I was looking for the tiniest ones and we ran back home full of joy and laughter. Granny found some woollen string and bits of fabric, I had no idea what they were for, but I quickly found out. With such a quick and fun activity she showed me that you can use leaves and plants to extract colour and you don’t need to go far to be creative-start with your kitchen. I still try to dye eggs every Easter and share them with friends and family. If you have children they will absolutely love this, so just follow the simple steps below and have fun!

What you will need:
  • Raw eggs
  • Onion skins (red,brown or both)
  • Cooking pot
  • Leaves
  • Squares of fabric
  • String
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We will be wrapping raw eggs in leaves and onion skins, using squares of fabric to hold them together with string. For this tutorial I am using brown eggs, simply because I was not able to find any white ones at the shop. If you can, I really recommend using lighter ones because you will get a stronger print.

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You might get some colours from the leaves you pick, but our main purpose of them is to get a resist print - a plant shape on an orange background from onion skins. Take your egg and place your leaves wherever you prefer and cover the leaf with onion skins. Make sure the skins are tightly wrapped around the egg. Take your bit of fabric and tie everything together. This will hold it in place while cooking. Do the same with all your eggs.

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  • If you’re having problems placing your leaves on the eggs, you can wet the eggs or soak your leaves in water
  • If you don’t have any leaves you can use anything else, even wrapping string or rubber around your egg. That will give you lines.
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Now that your eggs are nicely wrapped, you’re ready to cook them. It’s up to you how long for, but I recommend 20 minutes so they will be hard boiled.

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Fill your pot up with cold water and position you eggs inside. Place it over medium heat and close the lid. Don’t let the eggs boil too quickly. You want to give onions a bit of time to release colour.

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This is after 10 minutes, as you can see the colour is already pretty strong. If you like eggs medium boiled then you can take one out and check if anything printed. Just be careful not to burn yourself.

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After suggested 20 minutes, shock your eggs with cold water, allow them to cool down and they’re ready to unwrap!

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I chose thicker bits of fabric because I knew the onion skins will leave marks and I can later slow stitch over them. Clean your eggs from any leaves or skins. You can rinse them and they are ready to look at and eat.

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I love that I even got bits of green from some leaves and it’s great that I couldn’t find any lighter coloured eggs. We now know that you can colour darker ones as well. For comparison the next picture is from another year with lighter eggs so you can see the difference.

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I hope you enjoyed this tutorial, please tag me in your egg colouring pictures on social media and share this with your friends. I can’t wait to see what you all come up with! Happy Easter everybody.


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Dyeing With Avocado Skins

5/24/2017

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It’s hard to imagine by looking at avocados that they can produce a beautiful pink dye, but with this easy tutorial you can all try this at home and give new life to your per-loved garments. Keep in mind that natural fibres such as cotton, linen, wool, silk etc will take the dye much easier.

Now start collecting your skins or pits(you can use both). Try scraping as much as you can off them and put them in the freezer  until you have enough to use. You can wash them, but I can never be bothered, it doesn’t make much of a difference later on.

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What you will need:
  • Avocado skins or pits(they will produce slightly different shades, experiment with both)
  • Two nonreactive stainless-steel pots to start with(later on you can try different ones to see how it will affect your results)
  • Pre-washed fibre( I really recommend to always stick to natural and organic ones)
  • Nonreactive stainless steel tongs( You can use a wooden spoon, but depending on what timber  it’s made of and how treated it might affect the result)
  • A strainer
  • Water
  • Heat source
  • Salt
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Let's begin!
  • Place your skins in the pot and fill up with water. Add enough water to let them float freely, but remember the more avocados, the more concentrated the dye. Depending on what shade you’re after.
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  • You can break them up for a faster result.
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  • Now heat them up and bring to a simmer. Don’t boil them! Even though it might seem that it will speed up the process, I found that that slow simmering works much better! You will start noticing the changes after about fifteen minutes. Heat for about an hour for stronger colours and make sure you close the lid so your dye doesn’t just evaporate. Stir it every now and then.
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  • Here is how it looked after forty five minutes. When you’re satisfied with the colour, strain your dye into another nonreactive pot! There’s nothing more annoying than picking bits of avocado from your fabric later on.
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  • Don’t straight away dispose of your skins; you can repeat the previous steps again if you need more dye!
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Your dye is now ready; submerge your fabric in it. If you live in a very hot place just leave it under the sun so it stays warm for longer. Otherwise close the lid again and just let it sit.
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  • For best results and stronger colour, I do recommend leaving it over night, but for this tutorial I look my fabric out after a few hours to take pictures, while I still had light. Be patient! After you’re finished, you can actually store your dye in the fridge to use again. Just remember to heat it up!
  • Take your fabric out and squeeze as much water out as possible. Let it dry in a shady spot! Natural dyes are very sensitive to the sun! Before you rinse your fabric, just let it sit for a week or longer. This will help with more permanent results.
  •  I recommend dipping your dyed piece in warm salt water for a few minutes. It works as a fixative. Ocean water is perfect, but if you’re mixing your own make sure you buy salt that’s not iodised!
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Here are my results. I love the lighter shades, but if you want stronger pinks just use more skins and heat them for longer!
Now start eating avocados and have some fun! If you have any questions I'm always very happy to help out.

Please note: Some fibres need a mordant for dyeing, but if dyeing with avocado pits, you do not need to pre mordant your fibres, as tannin in them acts as a mordant.

Enjoy!

Liya xx

This tutorial was originally written for MOCHNI.COM <3




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